


the destiny of stars

by puckity



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 2018 Thorki Big Bang, Abandonment Issues, Aftermath of Torture, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Bisexuality, Canon Compliant through IW Part 1, Canonical Character Death, Codependency, Different POVs of Canonical Events, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth, POV Alternating, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), References to Foster Care, Reincarnation, Sibling Incest, Switch Thor, switch Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-20 17:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16560020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: When Loki died—all the Æsir-bones in his neck crushed beneath the grip of Thanos—nothing happened. No eruption of magic uncaged, ripping through the spools of the universe. No diffusion of energy returning to the primordial cosmos. No cessation, no realignment, no moment to breathe out into the absence of. Just a soft, wet crack and nothingness.That was how Thor knew, as he pawed at his brother’s leathers and drummed out the missing heartbeat with his fists, that this was not the end.[A reincarnation remix of the Orpheus & Eurydice myth, by way of the most tragically codependent god-brothers around.]





	the destiny of stars

**Author's Note:**

> Even the Snap-ening™ couldn't keep me from indulging in the wonderful [**2018 Thorki Big Bang**](https://thorkibigbang.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> You can find the artwork for this fic created by [boltplumart](http://boltplumart.tumblr.com/) [here](http://boltplumart.tumblr.com/post/180003741164/my-piece-for-the-thorki-big-bang-for-the-awesome)\--it was a pleasure collaborating with you!
> 
> Beta'd by the long-suffering [Rachel](http://betterwithsparkles.tumblr.com/).
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/), if you'd like.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

 _ _—_ The Old Astronomer_, Sarah Williams

__

Under the Asgardian sky dusty with stars like thistles set alight, two young princes once sprawled knee to knee in the royal gardens and traded whispers in the dark.

The one with a mop of yellow hair frayed at the ends cracked twigs in his hands, scattered the broken bits around them like bones for a spell.

“Tell me a story, brother.”

The other—thinner and smaller with loose black curls dripping over his eyelashes—held out a palm and the sticks began to levitate, dancing above the grass.

“Which one would you like to hear?”

\---

The sun rises late over the patches of scrub that collect in the corners of Galisteo, 20 miles south of Santa Fe and due west of Puente Antiguo. Somewhere out near the horizon there was a patch of desert, a perfect circle charred with a language from across the skies.

But that was old news now, and the scratchy locals could go weeks without even remembering that it was out there at all.

“Tasio!” A boy who wasn’t a boy, who had grown into a man’s limbs without realizing it, shouted over the dusty, icy swallows of wind. “Come back—it looks like a bad storm’s rolling in!”

At the property line, thighs pressed against the chicken-wire fence, another not-boy stared out towards the electric horizon and called back: “Not yet!”

When the first snap-boom sliced the sky in half neither one of them flinched.

\---

When Loki died—all the Æsir-bones in his neck crushed beneath the grip of Thanos—nothing happened. No eruption of magic uncaged, ripping through the spools of the universe. No diffusion of energy returning to the primordial cosmos. No cessation, no realignment, no moment to breathe out into the absence of. Just a soft, wet crack and nothingness.

That was how Thor knew, as he pawed at his brother’s leathers and drummed out the missing heartbeat with his fists, that this was not the end.

This was just another trick, just another one of Loki’s bitter jests—and a good one, Thor could admit. An admirably skillful one, with commitment even as the burning wreckage of The Statesman exploded around them. Even as Thanos tore through the universe, aided by the power that Loki had bartered for Thor’s life with despite his bored assertions that—if it came down to it—he would let every last one of them die before surrendering the stone.

“Do you think I would give up such a prize so easily?” Loki had hummed against Thor’s cheek, full of cold warmth and strange wonder. “I thought you had come to know me better than that by now, brother.”

“Perhaps.” Thor had shifted back, scuffed his resoled boots along the metal ship floor. “That is why I ask you to promise me, Loki: if the time comes, you won’t reach for it.”

Loki had stilled—for no longer than an exhale—but Thor had seen it. He let his hand rest firm at the base of Loki’s spine.

“Do not worry, Thor. When the time comes, you will have no doubt of my allegiances.”

\---

Malik was 14-years-old and had just been dropped off with his third foster family when the local newspaper started blaring thick headlines:

****GODS OF WAR: Alleged Demi-beings Duke it out in the Desert** **

****BIG, BLONDE, AND BEAUTIFUL: Male Model Says He’s a Norse Reincarnation** **

****“IT’S NOT ALIENS” Claims Black Suits Setting Up Classified Outpost** **

He hadn’t paid much attention to that; the new parents said that folks needed something to keep themselves entertained with in the wild, empty sprawl of borderland and it might as well be god-aliens.

A year later the sky over New York City opened up on national news, and those New Mexico god-aliens became part of something a whole hell of a lot bigger. Malik sat with his foster mom—heels dug into the couch cushions—and watched a new kind of reality unfold, one that looked like it had been grafted from a bargain bin video game or a popcorn action movie. And he could almost believe it, almost believe that it was all stunts and special effects, except when the cameras lingered on the people: screaming, crying, bleeding. Except when they panned past bodies dropped lifeless in the background, nothing but legs and arms stretched unnatural out from two-story tall piles of debris.

Afterwards everything from cable news to daytime talk shows dissected the Event and what it meant. Gave their bickering opinions on this new super team—the Avengers, verified by Tony Stark himself—and its members, with particular focus on _who_ was to blame. Was it Stark, for outing superheroes to begin with? Or the shadowy organization that, everyone agreed, had to be behind them? What about that doctor who could turn himself into the Hulk—hadn’t he taken out half of Harlem a few years back?

And then there were the god-aliens, the brothers (if the rumors were true), one destroying things while trying to save Earth and the other following suit in the hopes of decimating it. Even the local papers had something to say about that:

****BRAWL OF BROTHERS: Puente Antiguo Fight Started Last Year Resumes in NYC** **

It was a lot to handle at 15, but that was before CYFD pulled up to the house and asked to speak to the parents.

Malik didn’t understand; he thought it’d been going okay. Things were always bumpy in a new home, but the dad worked and didn’t lose his money at the casino or the track and didn’t smack around his wife and mostly left Malik to himself. And the mom was sweet—she baked cookies and gave Malik a few extra dollars to buy snacks after school and even offered to chaperone on any extracurriculars that he wanted to join. He’d gone out for football because of her; he was pretty sure that she would sign him up for something if he didn’t do it first.

He ended up making varsity as a sophomore, which wasn’t anything to sneeze at even in a small little kick-around town.

He marched into the kitchen after the representative left, ready to make his case for staying but prepared to pack up again too. Just in case.

It ended up, he wasn’t leaving.

Ten days later, a kid built like a bundle of twigs showed up on the front door step with a frizz of curls and eyes cast down.

“Malik, come and say hello to Anastasio.” His foster mom held out her hand to the kid, who didn’t take it. “He’s your new brother.”

The kid stepped inside, careful to keep his shoes on the doormat.

After a few stiff seconds, the kid muttered: “Call me Tasio.”

\---

In the end, Thanos fell as they all did. The Titan had sought to harness destiny and correct its flow, but fate is a savage and shifting thing. Thor had learned that too late himself; he should have known it with the first village unsaved in his youthful campaigns, the first innocent life extinguished by a too-hasty attack. He should have known it when ice breached the Vault on his coronation day—that fate could never be mastered.

But the lesson came only when Thanos pressed the fingers of his gauntlet together and snapped.

When Thanos fell, he took the hush of his balanced universe with him. The noises came back in a rush: joyful cries at reunions, mournful wails at loss, the clamour of life unbound and hungry once more.

Thor’s world, however, remained muted.

Those of his people who survived rallied behind their victorious king and his last Valkyrie, who had navigated them to safety after The Statesman massacre. They committed themselves to resilience and hope, to a rebirth of the glory of Asgard and a better communion with all of the living leaves of Yggdrasil.

They sent their glorious dead to the stars, alight with the communal seiðr where—though their bodies had been lost to the void of space—their souls shined still.

“And what of the prince?” His advisors had asked, as they gathered the too-long list of names for remembrance. “Shall we call him first, or last? Or will he have his own pyre?”

Thor paused, took note of how thick the scroll already was. “Call him in his place with the others. We will hold a full ceremony once our new settlement has been established.”

The advisors had nodded, full of somber approval. Thor had shown himself once more to be willing to place the needs of his people and the limitations of their resources above his personal extravagancies; this was the king they—the flickering wick of New Asgard—needed.

And if that allowed Thor a bit more time to seek out his brother, to flush Loki out of wherever it was he had concealed himself, his people would surely not fault him for that.

So Thor searched. He scoured every port they docked at, sent word to his allies across the realms (as many as still drew breath), dug into any track of seiðr he could find for a loose thread of Loki’s magic. He called out to the All-Fathers and All-Mothers, to the Norns, to their parents watching from the skies. He seal-locked the thick metal door to his chamber and screamed out at the vast blackness.

But no answers came back to him.

\---

 _Brother_ and _sister_ weren’t words that Malik used, at least not when he named things in his head. They’d never felt right, never seemed like they meant what he actually felt. It wasn’t like he’d never shared a house before—just that those words seemed too permanent for his kind of life.

Some foster houses were overfull with kids and it ran more like a daycare than a family; others were just adults with one kid at a time like they were running a series of test drives but never buying. Most of them shuffled so much that it wasn’t worth getting attached to anyone or anything; it’d all be gone soon enough.

Then there were the ones that tried, really tried, to make it a home. The ones who hoped to be called “Mom” and “Dad” and who made sure to never cram “foster” before the word “kid”. The ones that got so close to feeling like this could be a real family, even though it was all just one site visit away from falling apart. Those were the dangerous ones, Malik knew, and (even before Tasio) his third foster family was already leaning that way.

Still, it took him a month and a half before “brother” slipped out by accident. One afternoon he caught some kids from a few blocks over—overgrown and self-declared kings of the neighborhood—picking and pushing at Tasio on the edge of the basketball courts in the park and it just sort of happened.

“Hey, leave him alone! That’s my brother!”

He’d gotten some bruised knuckles and a skinned knee for his trouble; in the end the kids got chased off with rocks at their heels. Malik threw most of them but Tasio joined in with a handful or two of gravel at the end. They walked home side by side with their hands in their pockets, bumping shoulders all the way to the front door.

Tasio started eighth grade in the fall; Malik dropped him off in the mornings, eager to show off his new driver’s license even if it was just to a bunch of 13-year-olds. He started for varsity football as a junior and between the Battle of New York and the bulk he’d started to put on his long frame with the summer construction and landscaping jobs he’d worked, his teammates finally came up with a nickname for him.

“What’s up, Thor?” They ribbed in the locker room. “You gonna bring down some of that lightening at Friday’s game, right?”

Aside from being tall and a little thicker than the average 16-year-old, Malik didn’t see the similarities between himself and their new alien-god-superhero. That Thor was like an ad for Norwegian male modelling come to life: white with a perfect tan, flowing blonde hair, and impossible blue eyes. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a bodybuilding magazine or off the cover of one of those romance novels his new mom kept stacked up next to her bed.

Malik was dark—dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes—and didn’t know exactly what to do with his long limbs and broad body. He tackled too hard and swung his arms too wide and fumbled over his own feet and they could have called him anything else and it would’ve been more accurate but for some strange reason, Thor stuck.

By the time Tasio made it to the high school, Thor was already a legend. Not Malik, the recycled kid who still kept a half-packed suitcase under his bed, but the championship-winning-field-goal-scoring Thor. The always grinning, loud-laughing, crowd favorite Thor. The never-short-on-attention, everybody’s crush Thor. And now their beloved champion was walking into school with his arm slung around the shoulders of a slouchy, sour-looking string bean of a kid and introducing him to everyone as his brother and it was bound to happen.

They could’ve been Shango and Coyote, or Set and Ti Malice. Could’ve been gods of their own ancestors if the other kids knew better, or cared. But those gods hadn’t crash landed on Earth and started punching it off its axis so they didn’t get to be immortalized in the annals of teenage slang.

So Malik and Tasio became Thor and Loki, the mismatched brothers. Strangely inseparable for two people who seemed like they were made of opposites—disappearing and reappearing as a pair, walking in lockstep when they were together, glancing at empty seats next to them when they had to be apart. It ended up making a kind of weird sense; most days Tasio looked like he wanted to call a sky beam down to get out of class anyway.

\---

“My King, I believe that such a course would be unwise.” The chief advisor, elected on terms that Thor had not taken the time to question, kept his tone careful and deferential. He watched for the static spark that flashed from their leader more often—and with less warning—these days. “We would all advise against it.”

Thor squeezed his fist tight, tried to keep the whirl of electricity within his enclosed palm.

“If he won’t say it, I will.” Brunnhilde crossed her bracers over her chest. “You’re being a stubborn ass, majesty.”

A burst of ball lightening erupted, singed a scorch mark onto the long council table in the shape of a perfect circle. The advisor flinched, ducked a bit as though Thor had been aiming purposefully for his head.

“Our resources remain…limited.” The advisor’s voice shook out of him. “Without a permanent settlement the people live on bartered rations. We must rely on what little fuel we can trade for and the hospitality of our ports for travel. A journey such as the one you are proposing would place too high a burden on Asgard, I fear, even if the way were known.”

“It is known.” Thor patted out the smolders in the metal. “I journeyed to the gates with the All-Father in my youth.”

“And you would risk the well-being of your people for such a quest? This is the will of our great king?” Though she had kept Dragonfang’s thirst for the thrust of violence unquenched since her return from exile, Brunnhilde could still cut brutal and deep without it.

Thor let his fury simmer; it was not for them—his two most capable advisors who kept their colony anchored to steadier pillars than Thor alone could have done—nor was it for his people who continued the slow trudge back from ruination with patience and perseverance. Thor took his meals, or at least the ones he found time and appetite for, with them in the great hall carved out of the derelict cargo bay on the old Kree freighter that they had been able to buy off an outpost at the edge of the Magallenic Cloud. Most of their time was spent drifting through the empty wells of space, on course toward whatever new locations had been recommended to them for settlement scouting. It had been this way since the Great Slaughter—as it was called by those who survived Thanos’s culling—with a few spots holding a bit of fertile promise while the rest proved to be either too barren or too colonized for their purposes.

The best prospects were at the far-flung corners of the universe, remote in a way that would make any type of integration policy with their galactic neighbors difficult to sustain. The Asgard before them had been isolationist by design; it had only been in its ashes that Thor fully realized how his father must have retracted himself and his realm in the wake of his campaigns for war and subjugation abroad. Their insulation had been Odin’s play for security and most of the common Asgardians (those without access to the power and influence of the court and its royal family) lived and died without ever having seen another realm. It had allowed Asgard to prosper and flourish on the bones of the All-Father’s conquests, but had also ensured naiveté and dependence on their rulers for guidance and protection.

That Asgard—the only Asgard that the people and their new king had ever known—burned in Surtur’s reckoning and in its place Thor vowed that he would foster a better homeland for them all. One that could bask in the great sun’s warmth once more, and share that bounty with their friends and allies. A wiser, more deserved world of peace and plenty.

That had been years ago, when the grief of their losses still cradled a kindling of hope that something newer and brighter could be born from it. When the people sent up prayers of thanks to the stars that, for everything that had been taken from them, at least some small pieces had been spared. When Thor looked to the glitter of constellations and took solace in the belief that everyone he had ever loved and lost still watched over him from those dark skies.

Time ticked differently once Thanos had burned his handprints into it. What straggled on as weeks out at the rim of the galaxy spun by in days at its core, and they discovered that ten years spent traversing the cosmic branches marked only three months back on Midgard. Scouts sent out for a month reported back with a century-long journey, while their caravan slipped through loops between realms that should have taken decades in hours. No one—not the councils, nor the advisors, nor the soothsayers among them—could make sense of it; eventually, time ceased being held as a standard and Asgard continued on, unmoored to any certainties of existence.

 _Perhaps_ , the remnants of their people whispered, _this is how the world unravels in our twilight_.

But—certain or not—time dragged on and the food and reserves dwindled and, for all of Thor’s pleas to them, the stars never gave more back than a twinkle. If only they had the fuel they could explore farther reaches of the Nine Realms and reforge old alliances, but traversing Yggdrasil’s branches took more energy than sailing through the expanses of Midgard’s galaxies and Thor did not want to risk stranding them on the other side of some uncharted cosmic door.

If only he could seek the consul of the Æsir, of his father and mother and the All-Fathers and All-Mothers before them. If only he could ask for Heimdall to stare into the soul of the universe and share his far-sight with them. If only he could drink deep in the mead cups with Sif and Hogun and Fandral and Volstagg and listen to the cautions of his friends with more respect than he had afforded them in their centuries of rabblerousing adventures. If only he could retire to his chambers at night and find the brother whom he had always shared his passions and pains with, even ( _ _especially__ ) when they were both the cause and the relief for each other.

If only Loki were here to weave a thousand new schemes that Thor could not see without him; even if they were not in great service to their new kingdom at least they would be distraction enough from the bitter, lonely drudgery of survival.

That was why, in the end, he had made his suggestion to the council. Something they had not yet tried and a mission that could give them—could give _him_ —a renewed surge of purpose.

“This is the will of Thor alone—of myself when I do not carry the great mantle of Hliðskjálf with me.” Thor sighed, closed his eyes against the weight of it. “And I would not risk our people, for this or for any other warrior’s quest.”

Brunnhilde nodded curt but narrowed her eyes at the tight, bloodless draw of his lips. “You’ve got more to say, so say it.”

“Perceptive as always, though I suppose the extra millennium gives you some advantage with that.” Thor’s mouth twisted into a curdled smile. “One of the things that will make you such a good regent.”

“Regent?” Brunnhilde and the advisor spoke almost in unison, the word stumbling out between them.

“In my absence.” Thor clarified, standing from his seat before his legs fell asleep.

The advisor gaped; his mouth hung open as he scrambled with his scrolls and electronic processors. “You mean to go by yourself, my King—without us?”

“I do—but only for a short time.” Thor clapped him on the shoulder, felt lighter in his resolve than he had in months. “I must, for I am stagnating with this inaction and no longer able to devote myself to my duties as a ruler should. I will undertake the treacherous journey to find those truths that we have sought since Ragnarok and return again with the seeds for our great renewal.”

“And if you fail?” Brunnhilde stopped before him, blocked his way from the room. “What then?”

Thor crossed his arms—softer in might than they had once been—to match her. “Then I will return disgraced and Asgard may do with me as they see fit. But I _will_ return, my regent, whether in victory or defeat. Do not fear for that.”

“I fear nothing except that you are chasing a boy’s dream again when they— _your people_ —need the resolve of a man.” Brunnhilde stared at him, catalogued the ticks of his jaw and the lines of his new wrinkles—eroded since he took the throne.

She was deciphering him, he knew, reading all his tells and deciding whether he would get her blessing or her fist cracked against his nose. He waited.

“Don’t be an idiot and get yourself trapped in a wormhole.” She stepped aside finally, dropped her hands to her hips. “And don’t forget why you’re doing this—what it is you’re looking for out there.”

Something glimmered—a flash of green—just out of the corner of his eye. He did not follow it, knew that he would not be able to catch it.

“I will.” Thor leaned down and pressed an affectionate kiss to Brunnhilde’s cheek. She did not sway in, but she did not pull away either.

“What shall we tell the people of your journey?” The advisor shuffled his council documents into the crook of his arm.

“Tell them that their king is as they are—capable of weakness and despair—and that he has undertaken this task so as to return better to them.” Thor crossed to the doorgate and pressed it open for them. “Tell them that I have gone to Valhalla to ask the shining wisdom of our ancestors, that we may be blessed once more in these mortal realms.”

The Valkyrie held back. “And if you return only in memoriam?”

Thor paused; his good cheer flickered in the harsh fluorescent light. “If that is what fate wills for me, then I can think of no more capable guardianship to leave our people under than yours.”

\---

When Malik got the college acceptance letter—landed a football scholarship at a small state university on the other side of Sante Fe—he thought Tasio would be happy about it. After three years of scuffing his heels and rolling his eyes as Malik dragged him to house parties and desert bonfires and reckless spin-out races along the old service roads that led to nowhere, three years of whining about Malik’s friends and hobbies and dates to school dances, three years of molding himself to be a contrast of his new brother before he was anything of his own—Malik had heard it over and over, sniping at each other across the dinner table or chasing each other during gym relays or sitting alone and passing a warm beer back and forth in the bed of their foster dad’s pick-up truck parked out under the stars.

He thought Tasio would be glad that he didn’t have to live in a shadow anymore.

“So you’re leaving, just like that?” Tasio combed his hair away from his face, pulled it tight into a small ponytail and then let it fall back again. “You’re just gone?”

“I’m not _gone_ , Tasio. You’re so dramatic.” Malik sifted through the pile of clean laundry on his bed, laid out matching sets of socks and folded them together. “It’s only like an hour away—I’ll be back here annoying you every weekend.”

Tasio scoffed, squeezed his arms across his chest. “And how’re you gonna make the trip, genius? Run?”

“Only if Coach makes me.” Malik chuckled at his own joke and ignored Tasio’s silence. “And Mom said she’d take me out to the used car lot after graduation.”

Tasio grumbled and knocked his shoulder hard against the door frame.

“What’re you so worked up about anyway? Aren’t you always whining about me ruining your life with all my dumb stuff like _football_ and _friends_?” Malik picked up a shirt from the pile—one that was too small for him—and tossed it at Tasio’s head.

“I don’t whine.” Tasio’s voice was muffled—and distinctly whiny—under the shirt draped over his face. “What about the adoption?”

Malik paused, shrugged. “What about it?”

“Is it still going through?” The bitter edge of Tasio’s tone went dull; he shook the shirt off onto the floor but didn’t look back up at Malik. “Do you still want it to go through?”

“Yeah.” Malik’s tongue went chalky; it spilled down his throat and he coughed through it. “Of course I do.”

When their foster mom had first brought it up over Friday enchiladas, Malik had assumed she was joking. A cruel, careless kind of joke that he hadn’t really heard from her before but maybe it was just a slip-up. Maybe she was tired or distracted or hadn’t thought before she spoke (like she always needled them to do); he put more effort into trying to justify that than thinking about it like it might actually real. Because it couldn’t be. It wasn’t unheard of, sure—but it was rare enough that from the first placement the case workers told them not to get their hearts set on anything. Better to just hope that the house is safe and the bed is comfortable and the family is kind than to waste time wishing for a one-in-a-million forever.

Malik had told himself that he’d stopped wishing years ago.

But she had pressed gently, said that she’d talked to the state about it and had been saving up for a while just in case. Said that the foster dad was okay with it, appreciated the reputation Malik had built up in town as a championship tight end and the way that he’d stepped up and helped out his wife when he had to spend days on the road for work. Said that they had a big house anyway, no use in letting it go empty.

He’d had two dozen questions— _why now, after all these years? when I’m almost 18? and out of everyone else, why me?_ —but the only one that came out was: “What about Tasio?”

Sitting across the table from him, scraping the tines of his fork along the chipped ceramic plate, Tasio flinched. The—his, _their_ —mother paused for half a beat, then smiled, pinched at the corners.

“Of course, Tasio too. We wouldn’t split up our two little gods.”

“Yeah, we all saw how well that went down in New York.” Tasio’d mumbled it around a mouthful of tortilla and cheese and then looked up, eyes wide, like he hadn’t really meant that to be out loud.

Tasio never encouraged the nicknames, shot daggers at anyone who asked if he wanted them to kneel or doodled caricatures of him with longhorns plastered on his head. That was another thing Malik knew his brother wouldn’t miss: the goading calls of “ _Loki!_ ” down the hallways that always rung a little nastier than the chants of “ _Thor!_ ”. Malik tried not to tease him and elbowed his friends when they looked like they might start up around them, just to save them all the trouble.

So for Tasio, that tumbled-out comeback—Malik suddenly understood something about how his brother read his place in their world that he hadn’t realized before and he decided in that moment how the rest of this was going to go.

He talked it out with their mom one Saturday morning when Tasio was at dance practice: the paperwork for Tasio—who was younger and newer (and easier to send back with Malik away at school)—would be done first. Once that was finalized, they’d send Malik’s paperwork in. That way if there was only enough money for one of them or if there were delays with the applications or if it just all went to shit somewhere in the middle, Tasio’d have the better chance of being taken care of. It made sense, he’d argued, since he was 18 and technically out of the system—and besides, he wasn’t gonna cut ties with the family if they didn’t make it legal.

But Tasio, he could still get funneled back in and churned around for another three years. Malik had seen that before—kids being promised that it was going to be official only to wake up the next day with CYFD in their living rooms—and he was sure that Tasio’d seen that too. Three years might not be all that long to someone who still slept in the same bedroom they’d had when they were born, but to a foster kid—to kids like Malik and Tasio—it was eternity. It was a lifetime with a mom and a dad, a lifetime with a brother, and then another lifetime shuffled out and spent trying to swim against the current back to that lost shore.

 _We’re a package deal_ , he’d jutted out his chin and clenched his fists to keep from shaking.

It took almost nothing for her to agree, to assure Malik that they’d never try to take one of them without the other. Malik had driven with her to Albuquerque a few weeks later to submit Tasio’s application in-person; two and a half months drifted past while they waiting to see if it got approved. They’d agreed not to tell Tasio any more than the basics until it was officially official.

Three more weeks—twenty sticky summer days—ticked by and still no word. Malik was getting jumpy, aggravated by each new letter that didn’t say _application approved_ , and Tasio was going through and locking up all the little doors inside him that Malik had just started to get wedged open. Four days before he was supposed to drive out for move-in day, he called Tasio out of his summer shift at the drive-thru ice cream shop and drove them down the main two-way road towards the slow sunset, not stopping until the town had disappeared on the horizon in the rearview mirror.

“Where are we going?” Tasio had folded himself into the tanned, cracked leather seat and pulled his fists into the sleeves of one of Malik’s old flannels.

“I don’t know.” And it wasn’t a lie because Malik _didn’t_  know—where he was driving or how long it’d be before they turned around or why he was doing any of this in the first place. It felt like being on the pad of a slingshot, rubber stretched back and taut. Like he was just about ready to go catapulting off somewhere and needed one more moment of _ready_  before he let go.

When the gas hit a quarter-tank Malik pulled off onto the loose gravel shoulder; he didn’t want to risk running on empty this far out. He’d gotten a used pick-up for graduation, just like their foster dad’s but with less rust and fewer dings and a wider truck bed that their mom had said he could use to haul all his college crap in one trip. It also meant that he could lay back there more comfortably—not have his feet knocking against the tailgate or his elbows hitting the side panels as he tried to maneuver—with whoever he was talking out for a ride. There had been some joyrides with his varsity teammates and a long drive or two with pretty, flirty girls but mostly it’d been him and Tasio wedged into the back of their dad’s truck with their limbs growing over each other once the growth spurts started kicking in. Malik was still a head and shoulders above Tasio, but his brother was catching up with him.

Malik threw down an old patched blanket and tucked it in at the corners. Tasio watched from the edge of the scrub, kicking the dirt with his sandals.

“Just thought we’d watch the stars one more time.” Malik gestured vaguely at the sheet of black-blue above them. “Before we lose the summer sky.”

After a few more scuffs with his sandal soles, Tasio climbed into the truck bed and shimmied all the way in. Leaning against the back window, he curled his knees up in front of him and hugged them close. Malik sat back on his forearms and let his ankles hang off the end of the car. The sky was hazy and mute overhead.

“There are too many clouds.” Tasio murmured and it caught on a whip of wind. “It’s probably gonna rain tonight.”

Malik craned his neck up, tried to find the pinpricks of light through the shadows. “Maybe it’ll hold off ‘til we get home.”

A streak of lightening tore open the dark above the mountains. They both knew what followed but still jumped at the thunder, like a mortar bomb going off in a vast battlefield. Malik dropped down flat on his back, propped a hand under his head and focused on the stillness around them like maybe it was enough to stave off the storm.

There was shuffling nearby as Tasio rearranged himself, uncurled and delicate next to Malik. They stared up together, arms brushing and static stinging between them.

“Mal?” Tasio’s voice cracked, pressed with puberty and something else fluttery beneath it.

Malik blinked, didn’t turn to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Do you…” Tasio’s words went gummy; he stopped to clear them out. After a few sharp coughs he tried again. “Do you ever think about…or like, wonder, I guess…I mean…have you ever…”

“Spit it out, Tas.” Malik shifted, bumped shins with him and let it linger. Wasn’t sure why; maybe he just wanted to see if Tasio would pull away first.

“Do you ever feel things you don’t understand?” It came out in a rush like Tasio’s mouth was trying to beat his brain to the finish line. “Do you ever feel like maybe something’s wrong with you? Like maybe you’re broken?”

 _No, of course not _.__  Malik had a letterman jacket and a dorm room on hold and a phone full of friends and four invitations to prom and a car and a late curfew and—and—

Malik had long-healed spiral fractures and scars where the case workers wouldn’t see them and nightmares where their mom sits him down on the sofa and rips his adoption papers in half and says _we never really wanted you_  and a brother whose new body he found himself watching as he drifted through the house in nothing but loose boxers and a thin t-shirt and he didn’t know why he _didn’t_  but he was sure that that was something that _would_ make Tasio glad to see him go.

He swallowed and it went down rough like vinegar. “Yeah.”

They both went quiet; the space around them buzzed with the storm charge. Malik chewed at his molars until his jaw was sore, was almost ready to roll up and suggest calling it a night but then he felt soft fingers twine with his. The air was warm but Tasio’s skin was clammy like he’d been fighting off a cold sweat.

“Don’t ever leave me,” Tasio whispered. His fingers shook against Malik’s palm.

 _You never make promises_  had been his rule number one, but now Malik nodded. “I won’t.”

He squeezed against Tasio’s grip and they laid there, holding hands in the darkness, until the rain soaked through the blanket beneath them.

\---

Loki was more than passingly skilled at combat—bested more competitors in the sparring rings than not by half and versatile with almost every weapon (although, if given the choice, he favoured his knives)—and so it agitated him to no end that Thor would frequently be chosen to accompany the All-Father on his journeys and Loki would be left behind. Thor asked their father once why it was that Loki did not go with them; Odin had given him no answer beyond _he has other trainings to pursue_.

Thor had thought he meant seiðr work with Frigga but after the many revelations of Odin’s reign, Thor was no longer certain of that.

It was no surprise to any in the realm with even a passing understanding of the prices, then, that through their long separations—and weathering the inevitable fits that Loki threw, in sulks and rages, before his brother and father left—Thor had always been motivated by the promise of their reunions.

When they were young children, still growing through their early hundreds, Odin would hike Thor up on his king’s saddle and ride off for a day or two into the Asgardian mountains to hunt wild Sæhrímnir. Loki would screech from the high tower balcony until he lost sight of them among the cobbled roads that wound through the city and Thor would feel the loss like a pulled tooth—aggravating and burdensome in its presence but without it there remained only a strange, unpleasant hole and a dull ache.

Upon their return, Loki would fling himself at Thor and they would tumble across the polished palace floors in a flurry of small fists and silk tunics and finely-braided hair until Loki felt his displeasure had been adequately expressed. Then they would run off together, hand in hand, Loki ready once more to follow his brother along whatever paths Thor might lead them on.

As they stumbled into their prickly adolescence—Thor growing wide and full while Loki stretched thin and elegant, both collecting admiring gazes as they milled through the court or trained in the yards—the separations became longer trials of endurance. Thor would pack for a months-long adventure, sometimes with the All-Father but most frequently with his newly-forged companions who had risen above the common ranks of noble competitors to earn a seat beside Thor at their victory banquets and a shared tent during their campaigns. These friends brought him joy and camaraderie with an ease that he had never known with Loki; with his brother, the world burned fast and blinding and they with it.

But a change crept over Loki too in Thor’s lengthened absences; he no longer wailed at Thor’s departure, nor did he storm at Thor’s return. He would stand in the procession next to their father and mother to send him off with a dispassionate expression as though Thor’s presence was not of great concern to him after all. Sometimes—after he had recrossed the bifrost with a fresh assortment of drinking tales to boast of—Thor would not see Loki for a few days. He was engaged in his studies, Frigga would say, and Thor would seek him out to tease the must and ink out of him. He would search the libraries and healing halls and all the forbidden crevices of the golden towers that they had mapped out as children, but to no avail. And although it was Thor who journeyed across the realms, it felt as though it was Loki who had left him behind.

That was why, in the end, Thor asked Loki to come with them.

The Warriors Three—bold Volstagg, stern Hogun, brash Fandral—and the fierce Lady Sif did not share his affection for his brother; Thor knew as much. He had not been taught courtly manners and diplomatic dealings only to misread his own companions. They thought Loki to be a capricious, temperamental being who would as soon bewitch their steeds into running off course and laugh about it when they were bucked off as he would sincerely assist them in battle or crisis. They had little patience for his tricks or his moods, and little sympathy for when either of them failed him. They did not understand why Thor insisted Loki join them—especially after so many years of travels without him—but they did not press him too heavily on it. He was, after all, their prince.

And one day he would be their king.

At first, Loki demurred. Rejected Thor’s invitations with a cold, flat dismissal and Thor did not understand what he could have done to deserve such a punishment—for that was what it had to be. He knew Loki too well not to see that this was just a new tactic in their old game. The only difference now was that Thor had not yet discovered how to counter it and claim the advantage over his brother once more.

“I do not need your favours, brother.” Loki brushed past him—after Thor had cornered him in the gardens—and Thor caught the scent of pine and copper and something more fragrant, like the oils that the court maidens dabbed along their necks. “Or your pity.”

Thor reached out, grabbed him rough above the elbow before he could think better of it. “This is neither, Loki. Must I have an ulterior motive in asking you to once more ride with me as we did as children? Can I not simply be seeking your company?”

Loki scoffed. He jerked his arm but did not break out of Thor’s grip. “What need have you for that now? Are the rowdy, ineffectual convoys you journey with not company enough for you?”

“Ah, see now. You cannot hide yourself from me.” Thor prodded, poked to get deep enough under Loki’s skin to where his brother could no longer dismiss him. “This is baseless jealousy—come on then, do not try to deny it.”

Loki twisted his thin lips until they drained of color.

“Am I to be jealous of your books? Of your ink and parchment and vellum? Those occupy far more of your time now than I do and have for these past years.” Thor released him and punched light and playful at his shoulder.

Loki flinched away. “It is not the same thing.”

“How so?” Thor picked at an overgrown fern, snapped off a handful of its blades. “You are jealous of my friends, should I not be jealous of yours?”

For a moment the air between them boiled and Thor honestly considered what he would do if Loki set off a burst of the secretive magic he’d spent so many decades learning. He wondered if he would be able to dodge it or if he could get a shout out before his brother hexed him into something that would no doubt be painful and embarrassing. His body tensed—primed for a fight—but Loki did nothing more than swat viciously at a cluster of flowers by his side.

“I _hate_  you.” Loki hissed, mouth choked with poison, before turning to stalk back towards the garden gates.

Thor lunged forward, blocked his way and pressed into him until he was crowded back against a thick canopy of hedged bushes.

“You are a petulant, selfish child!” He ground it out through his teeth.

“And you are an arrogant, thoughtless swine!” Loki puffed out his chest, tried to push back against Thor’s bulk.

“Thoughtless? Why?” Thor leaned into the charge between them; he marked the caged, feral dart of Loki’s gaze. “You think that I mock your feelings—that I do not understand the bitter talons of jealousy? You think that I am immune to its cruelty?”

Loki stilled, stopped rustling against the hedge leaves, and looked up at Thor. Once they had stood at the same height—and for an upsetting decade and a half, Loki had gained an inch or two on him—but now Thor held himself just slightly taller than his brother, so that he had to bend a bit down and in whenever he shifted close to Loki.

His brother stared at him—smooth and unreadable as marble—and it occurred to Thor suddenly that this might be a dangerous addition to their long-standing contests, something that he couldn’t quite grasp at while Loki was watching him so intently.

Loki licked his lips; Thor followed the wet trail his tongue left behind.

“You think you know jealousy, brother? You think you know cruelty?” Loki tipped up, fast and vicious, before Thor could think of getting away. His mouth was soft, pliant on Thor’s and the sensation struck before the reality. By the time Thor understood what this new game was, Loki was already pulling away.

He smiled, cool as the winter’s frost on the palace fountains, and anyone else would have missed it. Anyone else would have seen only the nasty glint of triumph in Loki’s eyes and missed the sad, uncertain shudder beneath it.

“You see, brother. You know _nothing_  of such things.”

Then he moved to shove past Thor’s arms, to break out of the trap he had let himself fall in, but once again Thor was faster. He caught Loki around the waist and dragged him back.

Loki’s kiss was a dare, another in the infinite assortment of instruments he’d collected to torment Thor with. But Thor’s kiss was a challenge—hard and harsh and seeking surrender or escalation or both, demanding whatever Loki would give him. At first it was nothing, only stiffness as though his joints had been locked in place. Then came fight—twisting and thrashing but never striking at Thor, never pushing this back into the safety of their childhood scuffles.

It ended with them clawing at each other—Loki wedged halfway into the hedge—covered in thin trails of blood and broken flesh with little sense of whether it had been the shorn branches or their own fingernails that had left the marks. Loki panted hot against his lips and scratched raw along the slope of his shoulders and Thor had not known (had not ever turned a thought to it) that he could want this. That he could __need__  this. Not until he had it did he realize that his brother had not been the only one who craved; all these strange, tense years lost to it and Thor almost laughed at how simple the solution was. Would have laughed if Loki had not wound his fingers around Thor’s braids and yanked them from the scalp so that he could better access the cords of Thor’s neck.

He dragged his teeth over the soft tufts of Thor’s new beard and nipped at the cut of his jaw. Thor, still a reckless and rash boy in many ways, ran his palms down Loki’s sides and settled over the back of his breeches. He squeezed before he could think better of it and his brother yelped against his collarbone. They stilled then—the frenzy held off like a rabid hound straining against its leash—and Thor bit at the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper on his tongue.

“Brother…” Thor grit it out, breath heavy and ragged like he’d just slaughtered an army of fearsome foes.

Loki choked at the word, eyes wide as if Thor had spat a curse at him. It settled in the pit of Thor’s stomach—a wrongness that could only fester in the shadows, an understanding that would always be forbidden to them, something that ought to be conquered and vanquished so that a better thing might grow from its bones—and for a moment he felt sure that he would be sick all over the most prized flora in the Nine Realms.

He knew that he should go, should unwind Loki from his arms and retreat to the training grounds or the Great Hall or his own chambers and be sure to lock the doors behind him. He should flush all of this out between them, should redouble his efforts to include Loki in his journeys and encourage his brother to pursue friends—and lovers—of his own. He should consider their father’s urgings toward suitable consorts for an Asgardian prince more carefully, should undertake more serious courtships of his own beyond the playful dalliances he had thus far enjoyed. He should seek to be a better brother to Loki, rather than— _this_.

“Brother.” He whispered and it burned less sour the second time. Tasted almost sweet and heady, like too-young mead, and Loki shivered against him.

Thor swayed down—the decision already made—but stopped short at the muffled cluster of voices rising up from the canopies.

“Prince Thor! Prince Loki!” Two or three garden guards who must have seen both of them enter through the gates called out, near enough for alarm and rustling nearer. “Young lords, the All-Mother seeks your presence for the diplomatic processions!”

Thor glanced at Loki, the pink blotches already fading from his cheeks. He glared back as though Thor were the only one who had forgotten about the arrival of the Vanir envoy that afternoon.

By the time the guards found them, the two princes were wearing matching expressions of haughty annoyance at being shouted after—Thor leaning against a bronzed railing and Loki sitting on a stone bench, an entirely respectable distance between them.

\---

For the first six months, Malik kept his promise. He came home every weekend that he didn’t have a game on and spent all the hours (not taken up by filling their mom in on what college was like these days) with Tasio. They talked on the phone most nights, texted when they couldn’t, and Malik usually fell asleep with his cell phone dying on the pillow next to him.

Then something came up, a cram session or an extra practice or something else at the very last minute, and Malik forgot to change his plans. Forgot to let them know—forgot to let _Tasio_  know—and didn’t even realize it until he checked his phone and saw three missed calls from Mom.

He called back Tasio, sent him a cluster of out-of-order texts and checked his notifications every five minutes. He sat with his nerves gnawing at the lining of his stomach and couldn’t totally understand why—why Tasio wasn’t answering, why he was so sure that this silence was punishment, why he even cared if it was or wasn’t. Why he didn’t have better things to do with his time than pinky-swear it away to a brother he hadn’t even been born with.

Why being ignored by him—bearing the brunt of a hissy fit that would’ve been childish coming from a kid half Tasio’s age—hurt so bad, like someone was stirring up Malik’s guts with a red-hot poker.

When he came back from a lukewarm meatloaf dinner in the dining hall and there still wasn’t an answer, he caved and called their mom. Told her that he’d be out there the next weekend, would even come out on Friday night, and made her promise not to tell Tasio. He wanted it to be a surprise, sure, but maybe also a little bit of his own punishment too.

The week dripped by on radio silence between them; by the time he pulled into the driveway Malik was ready to chew out some of his sizzling anger on his bratty little brother.

He stomped into the house and slammed the screen door too loud behind him. “Where’s Tas?”

The shabby recliner in the front room was filled and it was the trucker hat that made Malik go still and quiet, wincing at the static buzz of the TV. Their dad was sitting there, half-angled toward the door but not making any move to turn the rest of the way. It was rare that he was home on a Friday afternoon—rare any afternoon, really, since his schedule tended to keep him out on calls until the heat of the day had cooled off in the darkness. Malik was careful to close the thick wooden door soft behind him, pushing it until the latch caught with a light click.

“You plannin’ on breaking the door off its hinges, son?” His father’s voice was gruff with all the desert dust he’d swallowed working down in grimy cellars and up creaky utility poles. “You’re lucky your mama ain’t here to hear you stormin’ around her house like that.”

“Sorry, sir.” Malik rubbed at his wrists. His dad had never told him to say that—never told Malik what to call him one way or the other—but that was how it always came out. Not from fear or because he was the type of man who stomped down on people so that he could lord over them; it just never felt right for Malik to call him anything else. “Where’s Mom?”

“She had to drive up to La Cienega. Should be back before dinner—asked you to wait if you could.” His dad shifted in the chair, looked back at Malik with light eyes peering out past sunburnt skin and sandpaper wrinkles. “Anastasio said he was going out with his girlfriend. Your mama told him that he oughta be home tonight but you know how your brother is.”

Malik nodded—dull and sloshy—and if his dad had asked him to repeat what he’d said Malik wouldn’t have been able to. The word stuffed itself in his ears like wax: _girlfriend_ , _his girlfriend_ , _Tasio’s girlfriend_.

It should’ve been a good thing; Tasio had never been very social and him letting anyone in was progress. A step in the right direction. Malik should’ve been happy, proud, grateful that his little brother had other people taking care of him while he was gone.

One day Tasio would have someone else taking care of him forever, for longer and better and in more ways than Malik could. More ways than he was supposed to, anyway, and that should’ve been a good thing too.

Should’ve been good—so why did it feel like the exact opposite? Like it was bad, the worst, a disaster. Like nothing would be okay until it was over. Until things went back to how they were before, to how they _should_ be.

He ate refried leftovers with his parents, tripped over his dad’s scattered questions about his position and the team and the games that he’d already answered a dozen times over with his mom. He went up to his room early after that, said that he was tired from morning classes and the drive out, and laid in his bed staring up at the ceiling until he heard another set of tires pull into the driveway.

The front door creaked open and shut, the only sound coming from a hinge that whined in the humid night air. It wasn’t like it was past curfew—Tasio was home with 53 minutes to spare—but his footsteps were hushed in the foyer, through the kitchen, and finally up the stairs. Malik waited, listened as the steps got louder and closer to his door and held his breath when they stopped altogether. He knew that Tasio was standing on the other side of the wall in the dark—knew that he should just get up, open the door, and drag his brother inside to hash out whatever it was that was going on between them. Knew that that was the smartest choice, the best choice, the _only_  choice really because otherwise this air would never be cleared and they’d just keep going, choking on it.

And he almost did—almost swung his long legs off the mattress and called out through the stucco—but then he heard the footsteps shuffle on, past his room and into the hall bathroom. The lock clicked behind Tasio and Malik knew in the dry rumble that rolled under his skin that this was the end of one thing and the beginning of something else entirely.

\---

The threads of Yggdrasil spun long and winding through the cosmos on their way to Valhalla—looping through realms and meandering across galaxies—and the lonely distance gave Thor time to reflect, to consider his journey without the constraints of justifying it to his court.

That he loved Loki had never been something Thor questioned; from the first moment he could remember peering into his mother’s arms and seeing a small, sobbing thing swaddled there he knew that his heart had been fixed on its axis. That he would love Loki through harsh words and nasty tricks, through pride and folly, through the unforgiving tolls of time and fate—it would be so. That he would love his brother greedily, hungrily, in hushed tones wrapped in cloaks and secrecy, swallowed down with sweat and pleasure—he had not expected it, but when it came he could no more deny it than a sun could deny burning itself to extinguishment. That even in grief and loss, even in betrayal gouged from their bones, even when he distrusted and loathed what his brother had twisted himself into—that _even then_ , he still loved Loki. He knew that others—his friends, his advisors, even Odin himself—looked on him as a fool for that, or perhaps as a victim of his own soft-heartedness. They thought he was too lenient on his brother, showed too much mercy and—like a hunter toying with its prey—Loki exploited that weakness time and again. Even when he assured them that he knew his brother, truly knew him, they still pressed:

“But why engage him at all? Why not be rid of him? Why not let the swift fall of an axe take him, or else lock him up deep where his power can starve from loss of attention? What is gained by keeping him alive that would not be equally countered with the danger he presents?”

 _Have we learned nothing_ , they would lament—but Thor knew they meant: _Have_ you _learned nothing, our prince?_

Yet they were wrong, all of them, because Thor had learned much in his lessons with Loki: he had learned of competition, of adoration, of jealousy and humility and the cost of truth. He had learned that his will and fate’s will were not one in the same, that he could not force someone back into the light if they had chosen the darkness. He learned that it was not victory that made a champion, but rather the refusal to remain defeated. And he learned that nothing—not madness or apocalypses or even death—could sever what bound his brother and him.

He had always known that he would love Loki until the Eternal Flame went dark—but tangled together in the coarse Sakaaran bedsheets fitted onto their cramped ship bed, Loki writhing on top of him on the other side of Ragnarok, Thor learned that he would love his brother beyond that too. So what now was one more death, one more limp body left behind for Thor to cradle in the ruins of devastation?

It was nothing, and Thor was not so simple-minded as to think otherwise. Loki lived—his soul still flickered in some corner of the vast universe—because Thor yet drew breath himself. Because of all the lessons he had learned, this was the first and the last: without Loki, Thor tilted off his axis and could not realign himself.

And if he had to rattle at the golden gates of their ancestors to shake Loki from his hiding place—if his brother would not reasonably concede this latest round of their childish game—then that was what he would do.

But when he came to it, the gates—the guardians of the glorious dead—stood silent before him.

“Hello!”

Thor called out, near to the bars but not touching them. Frigga had told him, told them _both_ , of the powerful and irrevocable magic that sewed the seams of the realms together.

“Will none come to meet me, a warrior and a king, who has traveled so far?” His voice echoed off the dense trees, tangled in the veil of mist that shrouded them, and whispered back to him in voices Thor could not decipher.

He stepped closer. “Is this hallowed ground purged? Do the souls of Asgard, once crowned in bravery and might, now linger only in shadows?”

The air hissed through the gilded bars, creaked like the hinges had rusted over. Something loomed just beyond the haze; a figure blurred around its edges. Thor squinted at it—though there was no glare of light or thick distance to account for its unnatural impermanence—and willed it to come into focus.

The voices that crawled inside his ears vibrated into a single tone: “ _Odinson._ ”

“One of a pair.” Thor squared his shoulders, did not recall such icy tendrils licking down the back of his neck in his earlier journeys to these gates. “It is the other whom I seek.”

“The God of Lies.” The figure slid through their death shroud, face finally taking shape.

Thor stumbled back, then scoffed at his foolishness. These were the halls of spirits, after all.

“Fandral, my dear friend.” He reached out, set to clasp a warm shoulder on instinct.

The spectre raised a rigid, gloved hand and Thor pulled back.

“How do you fare, good Fandral, in these blessed halls? You must want nothing for food and drink, for cheer and affection.” Thor smiled, tried to mold it shining like the Asgardian sun but it shivered and waned on his lips. “And what of warm Volstagg and noble Hogun? I shall look for my Warriors Three once more when I cross these gates myself.”

“But not yet.” Fandral replied, tone more serious than Thor had ever heard it. “These gates are still closed to you.”

“Indeed,” Thor nodded. “That is why I seek your consul this day. I would speak with my brother, and if I cannot go to him then I must ask you to bring him to me.”

Fandral shook his head, slow like the bloom of lilies over a grave. “I am sorry, my prince, but I cannot.”

“Come now, Fandral—what formalities do you owe me in death? The more so since I could not protect you from my sister’s wrath.” Thor swallowed, bitter at the back of his tongue. “We are dear friends, across every realm, and if you cannot bring my brother to me then I hope you can at least pass along a message to him?”

“I cannot do that either,” Fandral paused and a bit of color soaked back into his cheeks. “My friend.”

Thor ground his teeth; he had come for Loki and would not leave without him.

“Why not?” Thor pressed. “Why may I see you and not Loki?”

“Because the other Odinson does not dwell here.” Fandral spoke in a hush, as though it were a terrible secret to share. “Have you searched the rest of the Nine? Your brother was ever one for mischief and concealment.”

“I have searched every hidden pocket of the cosmos for him, and that was after I watched a mad Titan snap his neck like a crackle of twigs.” Thor winced; every repetition of that moment felt to him like killing Loki all over again. “He is not there. And if he is also not here—then where would he be? Loki is a trickster, but not an incorporeal one.”

“That is true.” Fandral scuffed his booted toe into the dirt, but no dust kicked up from it. “That is why I asked if you had searched _all_  of the Nine? Every dark, dismal corner—even the ones your sister was confined to, before Odin’s death?”

Thor gasped soft, had not considered— _would not consider_  such a fate for Loki.

“My brother is not there.” Thor’s voice rung hollow, empty of all confidence and surety.

Fandral watched him, gaze watery with pity. “I know not, one way or the other. I only know that he does not feast in the halls of the victorious dead, nor does his name yet pass from the mouths of the gatekeepers who know all that enter here.”

“No,” Thor jabbed an accusatory finger at the fading figure. “Loki is not there.”

The spectre fell into silence, retreating back into the mist.

Thor called after it: “You are wrong—and I will prove it!”

His words echoed metallic; no reply came back with them.

\---

College—whatever it was supposed to be, whatever Malik was supposed to make of it—unwound like a ball of yarn; it ran across the weeks-months-years and he chased after it, losing track of where it’d started and never quite catching it at its end.

When he skidded into his sophomore year, he got called to start for the offensive lineup. For most of the rest of the guys, that would’ve been enough: practice, games, rallies and after parties—rinse and rinse and repeat. But waking up with the burn of bottom-shelf vodka still scratching at his throat and the muffled pounding like fists against his ear drums lost its appeal for Malik after half a season, and his drill form cramped after each hangover; if The Lightening couldn’t bolt up the field after a pass, then what was he even doing out there? Besides, there was talk of pro scouts in the stands and he didn’t want to take any chances.

With academics he flopped around departments—from Econ to History to PoliSci—always sure to hold a B average for his scholarship, filling some quirky electives but never pushing himself past average when it came to his classes. He asked someone out—a spunky, whip-smart Physics and Astronomy double major who never let him copy her lab notes—and applied for a part-time job at the student gym. He rented an off-campus apartment with a washing machine, so he didn’t have a basket full of dirty underwear screaming at him to make the drive home every weekend.

And so he came back less and less: two weeks, three, a month and a half or two. When he did pull into the driveway it was almost always empty; after a while, his parents stopped setting out dinner for homecomings that may or may not happen and Tasio…

Tasio probably wouldn’t have been there even if he knew his brother was coming. _Especially_  if he knew his brother was coming.

It started—the slice between them—with missed meals and broken curfews and stiff shrugs from his parents when Malik asked where his brother was, but at some point during his few-and-far-between trips home Tasio’d show his face. They’d stumble over small talk like they’d forgotten how to be around each other and sometimes, if he was feeling generous, Tasio would even watch Malik back out onto the street and drive off with his hands stuffed heavy in his pockets.

Then Malik brought Shawn out to meet the family—it’d been six months and his mom kept ending their phone calls with the gentle, hopeful question of _when?_ —and that mutual cut festered into a boil. The plan was for a simple, wholesome family meal together; his dad took off work, combed his thin hair over and didn’t hide under a trucker hat, and Tasio greeted them on the porch with a warm hug and a glass of chilled hibiscus tea (both for Shawn).

That was when Malik knew he was in actual, two-feet-into-the-tar-pit trouble.

Tasio spent the evening spinning bright and clever and captivating, see-sawing between teases and compliments, full of the sparks he used to only show Malik and wrapped in a heady sort of charm that he must’ve come into once his brother left. He worked the room like a job interview—like a sales pitch or an encore to an adoring crowd—and Shawn shoved playfully at Malik’s shoulder, chiding him for being worried about them getting along.

“Where’ve you been hiding him all this time?” She winked, scooping up a spoonful of their mom’s hatch chile stew.

Tasio smirked, and no one but Malik seemed to notice that he bared his teeth with it.

It was irritating, maddening like a game Malik hadn’t known they’d been playing, but fascinating too—this new brother who he’d never really met before now.

They left early the next day—had to get back for a concert they had tickets to—but Tasio was already gone, blinked out like a spotty dream. An early shift, their mom said as they packed up the pick-up, and Malik nodded knowing it was a lie.

He didn’t see Tasio again for almost two years, not even when he misjudged a tackle in his junior year and tore his ACL in half. Everyone—the team doctor, the coach, hell, even his dad—sent cards and pushed for surgery, but his mom was the only one who drove out to the Santa Fe hospital for the procedure. By the time he’d gone through physical therapy the season was over and the pro league hype had shaken off him like dead needles on a pinyon pine.

The head of the department invited Malik to his office at the end of the spring semester, told him gruff and perfunctory that he’d go into his senior year on the bench until they were sure his knee was up to it—and that was it. Malik punched out every missed opportunity on the gym heavy bags until his knuckles started to swell, then spent the rest of the night cramming for his Global Environmental Politics final. He passed (with the second highest grade in the class) and Shawn took him out for dinner—pozole and flan at their favorite little hole in the wall—but all Malik could think about was Tasio.

Would he taunt Malik, smugly satisfied that his star big brother hadn’t even shot high enough to burn out? Would this finally start draining the poison between them, or would he keep letting the silence blister like he didn’t care one way or the other? Malik knew that—whatever else was churning in his little brother’s head—Tasio wasn’t apathetic to him. Not yet.

Or would he be disappointed—would this be what wiped the worship and hunger and desperation from Tasio’s eyes once and for all, revealing just another broken boy in Malik’s god-shadow? Just another person who didn’t keep their promises to him.

Malik came out for Tasio’s graduation with a brace around his knee and a crisp-ironed shirt, trying to pass for the beaming big brother even as Tasio shrugged his arm off from around his shoulder when they crowded together for family pictures. Afterwards, they drove to Albuquerque for dinner— _two college boys_ , their mom’d preened, _that’s something worth celebrating_.

“Where’re you going for school?” Malik mumbled, pressed elbow to wrist in the backseat of their mom’s two-door.

Tasio didn’t look up from the blank scroll of his phone. “Austin.”

Malik paused. “Out of state?”

“You’re not the only one who can land a scholarship.” Tasio clicked his phone dark. “And it’s only 10 hours…not like I’ll be coming back much anyway.”

The words hit like a neck snap; Malik flinched, covered it by shifting closer to the open side window. “Right.”

They didn’t eat another meal together until Christmas; Tasio said the drive was too far right before finals so Malik spent Thanksgiving warming the team bench for their weekend game. He and Shawn drove out on the first day of winter break, but Tasio only made an appearance on Christmas Eve and left after breakfast on the 26th, claimed he had things to do.

“Nothing worth staying for”—he cocked his head at Malik—“you know?”

And yeah, Malik thought as his stomach clenched around oversweet pancakes, he knew.

Shawn heard back about a fellowship right before spring break; her proposal was accepted for a year-long position at TAO Observatory and it was fantastic, it was incredible, Malik was so proud and—

“Are you gonna come with me?” She smiled at him, full of hope and love and a bright blaring future and he could go— _should go_ —because, after all, what’d he have that was worth staying for?

He drove up their dusty Galisteo road after he’d turned in his last papers, when there was nothing left to do except wait for that pomp-and-circumstance podium walk, without anyone in the passenger seat. Shawn was back in Boulder with her folks, or maybe she was already on a plane to Chile. He didn’t know; it wasn’t his to know anymore.

When he walked into the house he found Tasio curled up on the stubby old sofa, the sides of his head bluntly shaved and snoring into the April haze.

Malik didn’t wake him up.

Dinner was stilted, seasoned with hesitant questions from his parents— _did you hear anything from the football scouts? why isn’t Shawn here? what do you think you’re gonna do now?_ —and stuffed the rest of the way full with tension simmering between him and Tasio.

As he picked at his carne adovada, Tasio muttered: “So, you gonna leave again or what?”

Like a lit match thrown out into the dry brush, that was suddenly and irrevocably _it_. Malik slammed an open palm onto the table.

“Is that how it’s gonna be then, Tasio? Three years of hardly a goddamn word from you and this is all you have to say?” Something sizzled, beat in bursts along his veins, and it took every shred of his self-control not to pick up his plate and shatter it against the wall.

Tasio’s fingers itched near his silverware—eyes sharp like needles under fingernails—and it seemed strangely natural, almost poetic, that all of this might actually end in a kitchen knife fight.

“Now stop it—both of you—you’re being ridiculous!” Their mom cut in, firm and grounding; the crackle in Malik’s marrow receded. “I’m not gonna have the two of you at each other’s throats for the rest of your lives, so whatever’s been going on between you, you better sort it out! You’re brothers, and there’s nothing that’s worth los…ing…”

Her voice flickered like a channel-flip and they turned to look at her—to argue, or apologize, or pout through dessert—just in time to see her skin start to flake off. She sat suspended, like a house of cards, for one impossible second and then her body dropped into a pile of ash on her chair.

“Mo—mom…?” Tasio sounded so far away, like he was drowning, and Malik’s first—his only—instinct was to dive in after him.

Instead he glanced at their dad, who was staring at the air where his wife had just been.

“Sweetheart…?” He whispered scratchy, like he hadn’t gotten to say it enough. Then he started to chip apart, going at the shoulders and the chin and then disappearing under the table like a cheap magic trick.

 _That’s all it is_ , Malik kept repeating to himself—him and Tasio both stiff as stone in the hush after. _Just a trick _.__

He closed his eyes, counted to ten, blinked them open and then squeezed them shut again. Over and over and over, until the coyotes came out and started howling at the wide moonless sky.

\---

“Am I your first?” Loki asked, nails digging under Thor’s court armour and into the skin beneath it.

“First what, brother?” Thor goaded, pinching at a nipple through the silk of his brother’s formal tunic.

He sat astride Loki on the most opulent sofa in his private chambers—slick and cool from working himself open with the palace’s finest oil—waiting for a moment to adjust to the wide intrusion of his brother’s cock.

“Ravisher.” Loki thrust up into him—still tight like a vice after their hasty preparations—and coughed around a groan. “Despoiler, taker of your innocence and virtue and architect of your moral downfall.”

“Hardly.” Thor arched his back and worked for a deeper angle, moaning loud and unashamed when he found it. “I am a prince of Asgard, and have had as many lovers as I have had foes in battle—some have even been one in the same.”

“Liar.” Loki hissed, punching up sudden and fast into his brother and licking at the trails of sweat collecting between Thor’s collarbones. “You cannot fool a trickster, Thor.”

Thor dropped his weight, held Loki’s hips captive while he ground down slow on his cock. “Then you should not try to trick me, for you know you are my first.”

Loki grunted, tried to buck him off balance enough to regain the upper hand but Thor held steady, laughter like a battle cry rumbling out of him. Loki yanked at his braids and clawed down whatever tracks of exposed skin he could find, as though they were still bickering babes in their cradles, but the warm mirth in Thor’s chest only grew broader.

“Your first what?” Loki growled, wisps of seiðr whirling threateningly out of his fingertips.

Thor leaned down, nipped at Loki’s hard smirk until it finally went sweet and supple under his lips. “My first everything, Loki.”

When Thor drew back to breathe, Loki panted wet and flushed and messy and gorgeous and it didn’t matter what they were to each other as long as they were also _this_. Loki’s gaze dropped; he took Thor’s heavy cock in his hand and started pumping, trying to keep time with his own thrusts. After a while, his confidence faltered with his concentration—lost in the moment of thick, smothering pleasure—and his rhythm stuttered beneath Thor.

But it made no matter; rather, it endeared Loki more to him—welled it all up to the surface—to be allowed such rare and fragile glimpses at his brother.

“Everything…” Thor keened, on the knife’s edge and for once trusting Loki with the blade.

\---

The first few nights alone in their parents’ house— _their_  house, the will that Malik hadn’t even known they’d written said—were worse than any of his first few foster nights; then he’d been trying to gain a family, now he’d already lost one. Or almost all of one, might as well be all of one for what little effort Tasio put into being his fucking brother again.

They barely saw each other for the week right after. Tasio got up early for breakfast or stayed locked in his room late or didn’t eat at all; Malik never really knew. He left out plates before he went to work and found them gone—not just empty, but washed and dried and back on their cabinet shelves—when he got home. He set out a second place at the wobbly kitchen table (now two chairs instead of four) for dinner but it always went cold. After a few days he started wrapping it up right away and putting it in the fridge, and by the end of the week he decided to stop bothering at all.

Tasio wasn’t a kid anymore, and Malik wasn’t his butler—if he wanted food, he could make it himself.

On the eighth day he’d punched REHEAT on the microwave for a single serving of leftovers—lasagna that their mom had made an extra batch of, before—when Tasio shuffled down the stairs and stopped in the doorway. His fists were stuffed up the sleeves of his hoodie, leaving the cuffs to hang without hands to fill them.

They stood staring at each other for a minute or two, then Malik reached for another plate. That dinner was brittle and quiet—nothing but the scrape of silverware and their own chewing wet in the air—but something seemed to leak out between them and seep back into the floorboards with it. Something that’d grown in that house, something that’d pricked its way under their skin and spread like an infection since that desert drive before Malik went away. Or maybe even before that, since their choppy high school days or the first time he picked Tasio up from middle school or maybe even from that day—seven years back—when gods fell from the sky and Tasio landed at their front door.

Something that’d curdled in the shadows, unspoken holes they both had—separate and together.

Malik stayed up that night, couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. He stared into the cracks of his ceiling the next night, counted the paint chips on his wall the night after that. Was dead on his feet during the day—almost fell asleep at the front counters and crammed in the storage room at his work—but couldn’t find any rest in the dark, hollow space that was that house. It’d been scooped out like a gourd, scraped clean now that his mom and dad weren’t there to fill it.

He listened for coughs, snores, rustling sheets, creaking bedsprings—anything to remind him that he wasn’t absolutely alone again. But the nights were thick like glue and Malik couldn’t hear anything except himself rattling apart.

On the fourteenth day—two weeks exactly—his door squeaked open and Tasio padded across the floorboards and into Malik’s bed. He hadn’t heard it coming, hadn’t heard anything but the world screaming in a hundred different octaves, and his body went lock-jointed and still at the edge of the mattress. He didn’t want to accidentally brush against his brother and scare him off.

They used to share a bed sometimes; during nasty storms or when the howls got loud outside, Tasio would crawl in next to his new brother without a word between them and they’d curl around each other, all knees and elbows and ankles tangled up together. They wouldn’t talk about it in the morning, and the older they both got the rarer those nights became. But it’d been an understanding right up until Malik packed up for college—that there was always room for Tasio.

Now they lay together again, more than enough inches between them and the spring night wafting gentle through the open window. No excuses now, and still no questions, one way or the other.

After a while, Tasio started to shudder.

“You left.”

Malik exhaled like shards of glass ripping up his throat. “I came back though.”

Tasio flinched, crumpled away from him. “You _left_.”

“I know.” Malik’s fingers twitched, stretched out to run down the curve of Tasio’s arm. “I missed you, Tas.”

Tasio wrenched his body away from the touch then rolled over to face Malik, rage and fear and sorrow and pain dug deep into the hard lines of his face. He blinked and tears clotted in his eyelashes, furious and beautiful and Malik loved him— _loved him_ ; that sloshed around his brain and suddenly all the fuzzy edges of his life came into perfect focus—so much it ached.

“You left!” Tasio wailed, 12-years-old again and tearing at the dirty hem of a too-big shirt. He punched—weak and loose-fisted—against Malik’s chest. “You said—you _said_ , but _you left_!”

Malik wrapped him up like he used to, gave him room to burrow in and ran his palms over the notches and planes of his brother’s back. Soothed him with nonsense, coos and shushes until it’d clattered out of both of them.

Only then did Tasio pull back—eyes red but sharp in the slices of moonlight—and Malik saw him for who he was now. Not a kid still tagging along in his big brother’s shadow, but a man grown up fragile and thorny and desperate for his own place in the sun.

Tasio pushed back in, kept his eyes on Malik even as their breath puffed out hot against each other’s mouths. His arms had gone slack around Tasio’s back, palms itching down the knobby line of his spine and eyelids going heavy like now he might be able to sleep at last.

The kiss was rough from the start; they scraped and rocked against each other until everything was scorched and raw. Tasio’s nails cut into his shoulders and Malik held him hard enough to leave welts in the dip of his hipbones and it was wrong it was all wrong they were _brothers_  had always been brothers and—and—

 _And what else?_ Something roiled inside Malik, beat in his blood and he bit at Tasio’s jugular to try and chase it away. Something frantic and greedy and demanding in that darkness, sticky with need that was just (always) out of reach.

\---

The gates of Valhalla were carved ornate and sealed shut so that no souls could pass through before their time, but the maw of Hel gaped wide and rotten—it knew none would dare venture in of their own will or curiosity.

None save the first son of Odin, once all other paths had been tread.

Thor had not journeyed to this—the decaying under-roots of Yggdrasil—in his youth, nor in the centuries that followed. It held no intrigue for him, no promise of adventure or glory; it was nothing more than a swampy boneyard, foul-stenched and covered in an ever-night. Asgardian fables told of the shrieks of the damned dead, piercing all those who labored there until they clawed their ears bloody, but Thor found the realm choked with a silence so absolute that even the crunch of dirt beneath his boots was swallowed by it.

He did not know the way, but found that it mattered not—there was only one road here.

The path wound into a gloom both immense and blinding; Thor found that he could see desolation stretched out in all directions without being able to trace the edges of his hand held out before him. Stormbreaker hung heavy between his shoulder blades, latched to his back, and Thor wondered whether he ought to unsheathe it or if that would only invite trouble.

Knotted, malformed plants—greying, petrified, sucked dry down to the soil—sporadically cropped up like markers to gauge his journey by, leading Thor knew not where. The cavernous belly of this accursed realm, no doubt, where the answers he sought gurgled and swirled.

There was no burning sun here, no stars to set a course by and no moons to break the days apart. Thor trekked on, unchallenged, for miles or metres or perhaps he did not move at all. Perhaps the land shifted and waned and that was how it bred its madness, as a world of quicksand and ghosts.

After a while, he began to hear it—groans and whimpers, just out of sight. Behind him, but he would turn on his heel and find nothing but an empty road. Over a hill or down in a ditch, but he would scale their slopes and find them barren. Screams echoed far ahead and he would chase them, knowing that these were weavings of the wicked sorcery that infected this land. But each new cry sounded more familiar than the last—like knives carving down his back—and the deeper he delved the louder they became, until they resonated together into a single word ringing between his ears:

“ _Brother!_ ”

“Loki!” Thor called out, spinning and slashing at the mire. “Brother, I am here!”

He raced along—skidded across the jagged pebbles like a glass-shattered road—following now without hesitation as it sliced new turns and narrowed ahead of a lightless wood. As Thor approached it he dug his heels into the ground and slowed, not for fear so much as practicality, since the tangled mass was more thicket than forest. He reached for his axe and prepared to swing, but then—as if the gnarled trees could sense his intention—the tightest tangle before him unwound itself to reveal a passage within.

Thor held Stormbreaker firm in his fist for when this trap—indeed, it could be nothing else—was finally sprung. Once he had entered, with space enough for his armoured shoulders and the rough-shorn hair on his head to pass through untouched, the branches chewed together again and sealed behind him.

Inside, the thatch was hushed; he moved forward, couldn’t go back. _Wouldn’t have_ , even if the wood opened wide and bright behind him.

“Brother…” The voice scraped out soft but insistent, as though it was trying to whittle its way out of the trees—garbled like a mouth full of mud, but unchanging in its tone and timbre.

This time, Thor did not answer it. Instead he forged on, swaying the axe head in warning wherever the tendrils tried to wind around his feet. Eventually the spindly vines twisted together into thick cords; Thor knew they must be feeding into whatever was at the core of this entombed forest and soon they lifted off the ground to form a strange clearing, domed with leafless branches and carpeted in black moss and jutting stones. At the center was a broad, decaying trunk—bark like scales, shedding in patches—and a pale, ashen figure bound at the ankles and wrists and around the neck by thorny bramble. The creature was strung up by the legs, head held fast against the trunk’s serpentine roots and naked with only their mangled fists to cover themselves with. Dark, matted curls caught in the crags of the rocks that were stacked at the great tree’s base. Eyes—once clear and clever—were fogged over with white, the skin around them bubbled and festering.

“Loki.” Thor exhaled harsh and shuddering.

His brother’s head rolled towards him, blinking up at Thor without seeing him.

“Loki,” Thor tried again, stepping into the clearing. “Who did this to you, brother?”

Loki’s mouth opened—creaked against cracked lips—but no sound came out. Thor moved toward him, couldn’t stop himself even knowing that there would be no better bait for him than this; all his enemies, all the foes he had slain on the battlefield or sent to their deaths beyond, could be lying in wait and it would not matter. He would still go to his brother.

Always, he would _always_  go to his brother _._

The movement must have startled Loki because he flinched away, writhed against the vines that bit into his flesh. Up close, Thor could see marks—punctures, gashes, half-healed scars—lining his body and veins of Jötunn-blue spidering beneath this skin. The lean muscle that had fueled his brother’s agility and ferocity in combat were wasted away now; bones protruded and carved out their shapes like tools wrapped in vellum.

He reached out to wipe a smudge of filth from Loki’s cheek; it would do no good, for his brother was coated in foulness, but his palm ached to feel the flutter of life beating under Loki’s ribs. An assurance that—whatever else he had suffered—his brother was alive, just as he had known him to be. Thor’s fingertips hovered, ready to brush out, but then something dripped from above and seared a hole into his knuckle. He hissed, pulled back but not before another drop hit his forearm and sizzled through it.

“What thrice-damned bewitchment!” Thor hissed, shook off the last of the putrid liquid and hoisted Stormbreaker, but stopped short when Loki began to howl.

Thor had heard his brother scream in every pitch—fear, rage, joy, lust—but he had never heard him like this. The sound was strangled out of his throat then forced back down it, like the wail of the voids along the fringe of the universe. Drops hit on and around Loki’s eyes now that Thor’s hand no longer shielded him; Thor followed it to its source in a long, green-hooded snake drooling out venom above them.

“Are you the one who torments my brother, beast?” Thor felt the spark of lightening spit out from his nerves, but it did not break the skin.

 _Of course_ , he reasoned. Living seiðr would have no well to drawn from in Hel. But that did not matter here—an axe blow would be just as effective in vanquishing this serpent.

“You have preyed upon a weakened soul for too long, devil. But fear not—I shall remedy this error for you.” He swung the blade, aimed for the fanged head, but the axe froze in midair just above the creature. It hung there like it had embedded itself into some unseen barrier, and creaked on its handle as Thor struggled to wedge it out. From where it dangled amongst the thicket, the snake coiled and reformed itself into a new shape.

“Sister…” Thor stumbled back onto the withered moss; Stormbreaker landed on the ground beside him, wrenched free.

Before him, Hela—or the feral spectre of her—clawed along the great tree’s trunk, the horns of her helmet ingrown from the vines and bramble. She held a vial between her fingers—sharpened now like talons—and tipped it just enough for the liquid inside to drip down, slow and exact, onto Loki’s face.

“You’re surprised to see me, brother.” Her voice thrashed like the wings of a thousand carrion crows. “Though I don’t know why—surely you must know that you cannot kill Death.”

Thor scrambled to his feet, attention torn between his undead sister and his sobbing brother. “Is this your revenge, then? Our lives for yours, since you cannot have Asgard anymore.”

“I could have whatever I wanted—” she seethed, teeth bared “—as I am an Odinson, the same as you and less than him. And it is true that I have kept our brother company in your long absence, but his resting place is not my doing.”

She let another drop fall. “Death reaps indiscriminate; I have no power over which souls drift into my realm.”

“ _Your_  realm?” Thor grit out, deciding not to challenge her on the rest of it.

“ _Mine_ ,” she spat. “Where do you think our father banished me to, at the dawn of his new world?”

Thor swept the tattered remains of his cape out to cover Loki while the poison still clung to the lip of the vial, but it burned a hole through the fabric and Loki cried out beneath it.

“So this is the rule of your realm, sister? Torture for all your reaped souls”—Thor retrieved Stormbreaker, pointed it towards her—“ _indiscriminately_?”

The axe blade glinted, though there was no light here to catch it. Hela did not retreat, but she did stop slithering toward them.

“The trials of a Jötunn-born god-son naturally exceed those of your cherished Midgardians, and all other mortal creatures who live and die throughout the stars.” She smiled, mouth full of fangs. “It would not be punishment if he did not suffer.”

“And what is he being punished for?” Thor crouched down once more at his brother’s side. “Loki’s sins have been many throughout the ages, but there are none I can think of that would be deserving of such a fate.”

“Not even damning the universe with his selfishness and malice?” Hela’s nails hacked gashes into the bark. “Without him stoking malcontent across the realms, the might of Asgard may yet have been able to ward off their great reaping.”

Thor shook his head. “No, Thanos would have decimated our realm one way or another. He would have scorched it and all its inhabitants alive to get the Tesseract, just as he did with Xandar. No great might of our father—or of me—would have stopped him.”

Hela’s grin sliced her face apart. “And if our brother had not stolen that relic from Odin’s vault, would the Mad Titan have massacred half of our orphaned people?”

“Orphaned by who, sister!” Thor shouted, pulsing with boundless fury. “Who brought Death across the bifrost?!”

Cast in Thor’s shadow, Loki wheezed and rattled out a cough. Thor turned to him reflexively, smoothed his palms over his brother’s naked chest and felt Loki shattering beneath him.

“How long has it been?” Thor spoke to Hela but fixed his gaze on Loki. “How many years have you kept him as your prisoner here, tormenting his flesh and flaying his soul? Has he not suffered enough, sister?”

Her laugh was cruel, like a stab to the gut left to bleed out. “Appeals to our familial bonds will serve you ill, brother.”

Thor wiped the cold, clammy sweat from Loki’s forehead. “Very well, then I will address you as one ruler to another: when will you, in your authority over this realm, let me take my subject home?”

“When his sentence has been served.” She tipped the vial once more. “When this venom runs dry.”

“And what of the universe, of the balances of Yggdrasil? Do they not tip with a Loki who is confined in the under realms?” Thor recalled Frigga’s lessons—ones he had not then paid enough attention to—of the dualities of the worlds, the necessity for faith in gods to endure even if the bodies behind them perished. “Who will master chaos and mischief with him bound between life and death?”

“There are always others,” Hela sneered. “You cannot think our brother so important that the branches of the Great Tree will wilt without him—without you too, when your dust finally scatters across the galaxy.”

“How will these others know, if we are not there to guide them?” Thor was grasping, stalling for an opening he knew would not come.

She narrowed her eyes. “They will learn to be gods, just as we did. Already they are awake—do you not feel them? Wasn’t it that undying spark that sustained you all these years, that finally led you here?”

Another drop fell on Thor’s forearm; he winced but did not pull away.

“But if you are so concerned for this cosmic balance, brother, you are free to follow their beacon and teach these new gods yourself.” She pointed out—through the bramble and along the wasteland road—to the guardless gates. “Nothing holds you here—at least, not yet.”

Thor stared down at the wretched sprawl of his brother; Loki shook like a browning petal, clinging to the severed stem of a cut flower. Thor had spent centuries with this body: these limbs, this skin, the bones that built its frame and the blood and organs that churned beneath it. He had been locked in brutal battle with it, as friend and as foe, and sought comfort from it in turns. He had wrung pleasure from it, given and taken, and loved its form in every way he believed he was capable of loving. He had spent centuries reading the cunning glint in those eyes, marking the arrogant lilt of that tongue, being marveled and vexed in equal measure by its intellect. The God of Mischief was perhaps mutable—a soul for many vessels—but none of them were Loki.

Except this one.

Thor knelt closer to Loki. “If it is as you say—if fate wills them on this journey—they will find their way without me.”

Hela cocked her head, suddenly unsteady on her perch. “You will not trick me. Not again.”

“This is no trick, sister.” Thor unclasped his mead horn, carved from a bilgesnipe’s tail spine, and held it above Loki’s face; it caught the next slow poison drip. “You said so yourself: all of it—the Great Tree, New Asgard, the balance of the gods—can be sustained without me. There will be a new king, a new God of Thunder, but there will never be another Thor for this Loki…nor another Loki for this Thor.”

He smoothed Loki’s damp, knotted hair back from his face—smiled down at him although he knew his brother could not see it. “My place has always been here.”

“You’re still a fool,” she scoffed, burrowing back into the branches. “You are only condemning two souls instead of one by staying—you cannot save him.”

“Perhaps,” Thor murmured. “But how will I know if I do not try?”

At that, Hela swallowed herself back in the snake skin; she snapped at them before coiling around the high vines and hanging with her mouth wide, venom collecting at the tips of her fangs.

Loki suddenly began twisting, rustling against his bindings, and Thor reached down to cradle his brother’s head. When Loki opened his mouth a long, broken croak punched out from his lungs.

“Brot…” Loki’s voice crumbled around the edges. “Broth…er…”

“Yes, it’s me, Loki.” Thor leaned in, rubbed the streaks of grime from Loki’s cheeks.

Little wet bubbles formed in the corners of Loki’s seared-shut eyes. “S—sun…”

Thor brushed away the tears with his thumbs. “Not here, I’m afraid.”

But Loki nodded fiercely. “Brother…my brother, t—the sun…”

The stone that Thor had carried in the pit of his stomach—atrophying him from the inside out since he’d hurled Stormbreaker at the chest rather than the head, so that he could feel the life snuff out of the Titan under his own warm palms—lurched; it started to chip away, just across the surface, just enough to jar loose everything he’d had to bury in place of his brother’s body. He bent down—angle sharp and uncomfortable—and kissed Loki’s slack, gasping mouth.

His lips were rough like unsmelt ore; he breathed through them in heaves as though he might choke with the effort. He tasted of rot and decay and—beneath that—something rich and familiar, like the spiced wines that filled their cups during the fertile seasons of Old Asgard. Like the air—thick with mingling, discordant fragrances—in the old palace gardens and they were shuddering together once more, clinging to each other as if to dare destiny to break them apart again.

Between crackling hiccups and pants, another drop splashed into the bottom of the mead horn. Thor pressed his forehead to Loki’s until the pressure behind his eyes began to sting.

“Shh, brother.” Thor soothed, mouthing along scar tissue and listening to his own heartbeat echoing back under Loki’s ribcage. “I’m here.”

\---

Lightning storms weren’t uncommon in their little patch of New Mexico desert but for six months after half the world disintegrated, they ripped through the skies like a reckoning. Spring thawed into summer with storms roiling through at least once a week, then once every few days by the time summer melted into fall. When the nip of winter started to bite at Malik and Tasio’s necks, the storms were there almost every night—like, whatever it was that’d been coming, it was finally here.

Malik crouched over the plot near their back door where they’d scattered their parents’ ashes; a brittlebush had taken root and was still flowering, bursts of yellow weeding out from a blanket of ghost-pale leaves. He plucked one bloom off, petal by petal, then turned to the horizon.

“Tasio!” Malik shouted out across the frost-licked stretch of sand and scrub. “Come back—it looks like a bad storm’s rolling in!”

With his back to Malik and his knees pressed against the chicken wire fence, Tasio didn’t answer. A single bolt of lightning clawed through the sky and exploded a few hundred yards out; the flash of heat and light swallowed them alive. Malik squinted against the flare, out to his brother, whose silhouette glowed like it’d been seared by the hand of God themself.

A wave—of heat, of pain, of memory, of transformation, of _recognition_ —crashed over Malik, threw him back on his heels and he was falling. Falling down and up again, soaring through the grooves of space and ricocheting off the stars. Time collapsed, then vivisected itself until he could reach inside its guts and pull out only the parts that mattered:

_Family and home and duty._

_Sacrifice and honor and protect._

_Hope and love and—_

Malik blinked against the cold fire surging through his bones, moved to get up off the ground but he hadn’t hit it. He stood steady, tall, pulsing in the new night like a galaxy burned out and reborn again—as many times as needed. As many times as it took to get things right.

The storm had passed; the world was dark and hushed around him. Around _them_ , Malik realized, as Tasio finally turned from the horizon.

The flecks of green in his brother’s eyes flashed electric and Malik couldn’t have seen it—not from this distance, not before, not with his old eyes—but now he did, like a beacon calling out to him from the beating heart of the universe.

He could hear it, at last, chanting: _family, home,_ _duty, sacrifice, honor, protect, hope, love, brother, brother, brother _.__

“Brother!” Malik called out, strangely deep and booming with a double-echo.

Tasio swayed, hesitated before taking a step in; when he did, everything shrank to the singularity that was the two of them.

Same as it had ever been.

“Brother…” Malik whispered and it was the first time, the last time, a thousand before and ten thousand after—as many as it took to get it right. “Come back to me.”


End file.
